Love, life and family from the Big Apple

Lil Leaf’s Party

Two Sundays ago, we celebrated Lil Leaf’s first birthday with 18 of her friends and their parents as well as a few of our non-child(ren) raising mates.

Because it’s Winter in HK (threat of temperature dipping to the low teens), we couldn’t hold it on our terrace. We were stuck with no other option* than to pay crazy monies for average food. That said, the venue was perfect. We got a 2000 sq ft function room where one side of it opens out to a terrace. The weather was very kind that day, pretty much high teens throughout.

Mr. P went a little nuts for his little lady. A week before we headed off to SG for CNY, I took him to Simply Love to pick up some balloon bouquets as decorations. We spent 3x more than planned; the looks on our guests’ faces made it worth while I guess. 9 days after, her foil balloon bouquet and elephant walker are still standing.

Having done the cupcake course, I realised how time consuming it was and that I didn’t want to DIY. I ordered bite sized cupcakes and her Clover leaf / ladybug cake from a lady in Discovery Bay. While they tasted good, it was WAY OFF what I had wanted – Awfully Chocolate style fudge cake. And execution of the design (mine) wasn’t up to standard – the leaf wasn’t green enough and the chocolate fudge wasn’t dark enough. How could something so simple be so wrong!

(Mr. P liked the cake A LOT; well until I bought him a slice of Awfully Chocolate’s cake on Wednesday. He realised the difference!)

The best decision we made (and money spent) was the entertainment for the kiddies. Clover attends this 45-minute Funfitplay learning session twice a week where there are equipment resembling a mobile playgym. We basically paid HKD 800 to rent tunnel set, a bouncy castle, ball pit and a bunch of other toys to be laid out in the function room, along with a BUBBLE MACHINE. All the kids (10 months to 7 years old) enjoyed themselves. FTW!

I didn’t get around to doing much DIY mainly because of laziness and the lack of resources (biggest bane of my life – everything in HK is so freaking expensive or inaccessible). But on the Saturday night before her birthday, Mr. P even got around to helping make her “CLOVER” sign.

The only other hiccup was photos of the event; the lack of it. Since I was playing party planner, host, mother, childminder, I decided not to bother with taking pictures during the event. The only good pics we have are the ones I took (and a friend helped take) during set up and just before the guests arrived. Mr. P’s dad was supposed to be the event photog. He took over 1000+ pics, with barely 2% usable. Le sigh!

I am annoyed because during our conversation on Saturday night (more that he quizzed me on my knowledge knowing that I’d done a workshop), he sold himself to be completely competent. In reality, he couldn’t cut it; insisting on using FULL (and I mean EVERYTHING) manual mode. Really, really cannot make it. He didn’t understand who his subjects were (monkeys who would never hold a pose for more than a split second) and where the light was. It wasn’t just bad; it was HORRENDOUS. Everything was overexposed, I don’t even know where to start salvage operations in photoshop. FML!

Next time, remind me to just spend the money on a pro!

*We live in Discovery Bay on Lantau Island which does not allow private cars. Holding the celebration elsewhere is a logistical nightmare when it comes to transporting goodie bags, my 3-tier serving tray, decorations and presents. Also, a number of Clover’s mates live in DB and so it’s easier for us to hold it in DB.